Thoughts about teaching and learning and the quest toward greater equity and justice

New students in classes

Two new students got added to my classes today. One in Geometry, one in Algebra 1. Part of me starts to feel inconvenienced by having to get these students up to speed, but then I just imagine what it must feel like for them.

One of the two students told me she hates math and is only back at school because a judge ordered her to go back to school.

In other news, it seems that students are becoming more used to my seat arrangement system. I have an Excel spreadsheet that randomly generates seating charts and we use that to shuffle seats every three weeks. I explain that not everyone is going to be happy with the seating arrangement but that we do this because I think it’s important for students to learn how to work well with each other. The level of complaining that I get from students seems to be decreasing. Today we only had about one minute of complaining from my Algebra 1 class. I’m learning to be content with micro bits of progress.